This season’s Bucket Cup champions are Emergency Gap Jumper. They beat Game Of Throw Ins by 102 – 81. Congratulations to them. It’s their first prize money in their 10th Bucket Season. EGJ opted to wildcard, fielding a full XI, whereas GOTI chose not to and went with a seven man squad. The news EGJ won’t want to hear is that they could have beaten GOTI by not wildcarding and simply playing the six players they already had in their squad who were potentially going to play this gameweek. Salah, as captain, Pickford, Milivojevic, Firmino, Doucoure and Gomez would have amassed 85 points.

Manager of the week – The Vinegar Pissers – Paul Hawkins – 124 points

Last week we all put out full teams and some of us struggled to reach what was one of the lowest average scores of the season. This week we’ve four matches in a vastly reduced gameweek – meaning eight teams – seven of them being shit – and 14 Buckets managers post scores of 100+. And it’s all thanks to one player. If ever there was a week in which everybody was going to captain the same man it was this one. Only the ghostships and the league leader decided Mohamed Salah wasn’t up to the job. Brexiter drop to third as a result of their decision to take a punt on Firmino. However, had they gone with Salah, they’d still have lost their lead to The Vinegar Pissers, who have been threatening to take over the top spot for a number of weeks now. Who’d have thought this week would give up the highest gameweek score as well? The VPs only got eight players out, but it would have been a struggle to pick a worse eight. Only Callum Wilson offered up appearance points. Their three man defence contributed a clean sheet each, a goal, an assist and five bonus points. Mane and Milovejevic, playing alongside Salah, added a goal, two assists and two bonus points, and all of a sudden, Cenk Tosun needs to be taken seriously, scoring two to add to the other two he’s notched in his last two games. Four in three and he’s the striker in form.

The VPs have built up quite a lead as a result. Ordinarily you’re happy with an 80 point return, especially from a reduced gameweek, but Hornets are now conceding a 43 point lead to the new leaders. An honorable mention should go to FTM who achieved the second highest score of the weekend and did so by playing their free hit. The free hit chip was developed for gameweeks like this one. FTM finished four shy of The VPs. A bit more faith in Bournemouth or more investment in the Crystal Palace defence over the Everton defence would have seen them over the line. Yet, despite all their efforts, they only moved up two places in the league.

Player of the week – Mohamed Salah – 29 points

It’s the highest weekly score of the season. It’s, from memory, the second highest weekly score ever and the highest single gameweek score. It’s his 14th double figure haul of the season. There have only been seven weeks in the 31 in which he hasn’t either scored or assisted. It’s four goals, an assist and inevitably, all the bonus points. It’s Mohamed Salah, who now sits on 266 points from 30 of the 31 gameweeks. That’s an average of 8.86 points a game. At that rate he should surpass the 300 point mark and become the first player to do that. Luis Suarez’s record is 295 from the 2013/2014 season. Just leave the armband where it is.

Bargain of the week – James Tomkins – 15 points

In truth the other big scores of the weekend could have gone anywhere. Any one of the other teams could have kept a clean sheet or scored a hatful. Those who took a punt on Palace players would have ended up happy, particularly those opting for James Tomkins. He’s the safest route into that Palace defence at the moment – if you dare venture there. You couldn’t have asked for much more than a goal, clean sheet and all the bonus marks. Apart from maybe a second goal, which he as inches away from getting. Just don’t pick him next week.

Twat of the week – Charlie Adam – -2 points

I’m not sure he was gracing too many teams. In fact, he’s been dropping out of squads as opposed to being brought in ahead of this gameweek, which says a lot. Xherdan Shaqiri looked like the most optimistic Stoke choice, along with Jack Butland, who has been racking up the save points over the last few weeks. Shaqiri failed to deliver, but Butland’s 3 point return was the average keeper score. Watford and Huddersfield were the teams to completely ignore this week.

We’re getting to the business end of the season. A mad dash to make the most of Manchester City’s double gameweek was complimented by a flurry of triple captaining and bench boosting. The jury is out on whether it’s been worth it. First of all, sacrifices had to be made to accommodate the inclusion of Aguero, Sterling, Sane and company, and with next week in mind, it was Chelsea, Spurs, Manchester United and Arsenal’s big guns that took the hit. Be smug if you decided to see the back of Sanchez and/or Ibrahimovic. Wince a little if you decided to give Kane, Alli, Costa or Hazard the boot. In the case of the Chelsea and Spurs players, sticking instead of twisting would have been as beneficial.

Im sure most triple captainers would have been hopeful of surpassing the 100 point barrier. That’s what you want to happen. Of those that played the chip, all went with Sergio, who again, didn’t quite play up to his price tag. You’d have been mad to do so, but you’d have been better off triple captaining the Stoke defence. The fact that the highest weekly scorer didn’t play for either Manchester City or Stoke tells the same story. There were high scores out there – just not high enough. Our leading three teams – Aquamar, The Craggy Islanders and When Harry Met Alli all took the plunge. Hedgehog Corpse didn’t and ended up jumping into the top three thanks to no transfer hits and five double figure scorers, one of whom was Artur Boruc of all people.

One manager did sneak past 100. Hucking Fell were helped by the 27 points of a triple armbanded Aguero, but the double figure returns of Kane, Alli, Grant and Mane were probably more telling.

Shoelace Untied achieved the second highest score with 97 – a total which carried them through to the semi final of the cup. Shoelace were the most successful bench boosters of the week, earning double figure totals from Caballero and Pieters, as well as Aguero, Alli and Grant. They’ll play Jarvis FC in the semi finals, while Aquamar, who are still on for the league and cup double, will face Rico United.

Player of the week – Dusan Tadic – 16 points.Always has one good week a season – this was it.

Bargain of the week – Erik Pieters – 14 points.The bus was well and truly parked.

Donkey of the week – Andrew Surman – -2 points. Probably should have been Zlatan’s award.

Brilliantly throwing all best laid plans for gameweek 28 into complete disarray – it’s our first double gameweek – featuring two games each for Manchester City and Stoke. Time for a rethink.

Does next week really matter? Realistically how many points are you going to score with only eight teams playing. If you’ve doubled or even trebled up on West Brom defenders and Everton attackers, one is probably going to cancel the other out.

This week has huge potential. City haven’t gone away. They’re away to Sunderland and at home to Stoke. That’s Sunderland, who are….Sunderland. And Stoke, who are, judging by last week’s performance against Spurs, already on the beach. Might this even result in two clean sheets. They might have the creakiest ever defence of any title challengers in the history of the Premier League, but they have managed to keep two clean sheets in their last three league outings.

I get the impression that those of us stung by Aguero’s indiscipline and inconsistency earlier in the season have completely washed their hands of him, no matter what. Well, might that attitude have to change? We don’t have to worry about Gabriel Jesus anymore. Aguero is it. And he has four goals in his last two games. City have ten goals in their last two games. They play Sunderland. As well as Aguero, both Raheem Sterling and Leroy Sane look to have cemented their positions either side of the attack with both coming in at under £8 million. Even Yaya Toure could be worth a punt. On penalties and a starter in all of the last ten league games.

Is it even time to roll out the triple captain? There may not be a better double gameweek fixture combination than this.

And we shouldn’t rule out some Stoke players, particularly defensively, considering they’ve got Middlesbrough in their first game. Triple captaining Phil Bardsley might be a step too far though.

It’s cup quarter final weekend. Check the page. There are some low lying teams left in. It could be your only chance of a prize. I like an underdog win.

It appears most players have returned with a clean bill of health from their international travails, although there’s always a question mark over those flying further afield. Alexis Sanchez and Philippe Coutinho were rested on their return from South America last time and I guess it could happen again. Some teams can afford the luxury of dropping key players with plenty in reserve. That might be a particular annoyance to Sanchez owners with a home tie against Swansea this weekend and the potential for him to fill his boots. Serio Aguero was mid-suspension during the last international break. It’ll be interesting to see how Guardiola approaches the situation. And he did allegedly pick up an injury in Argentina’s first match against Peru, yet still played in their second against Paraguay. Kelechi Iheanacho looks more than a capable stand in these days, although he has been to Zambia and back himself in the last week.

The more serious injury concerns happened within the England squad. Raheem Sterling and Adam Lallana are the in form English players of the moment. Neither played either international. Lallana was injured in Liverpool’s last game and Sterling pulled out of the squad. If you believe internet reports, it doesn’t look promising for either player, although Lallana does have a few extra days to prove his fitness. Tom Heaton was also withdrawn after the first qualifier. The competitions leading keeper picked up a ‘minor’ calf injury and is listed as 75% fit. God knows what that really means.

Stoke’s luck could be about to change. Despite the worst goal difference in the league, having scored the least and with only West Ham conceding more, their run of fixtures into December all look eminently winnable. They play seven consecutive games against teams in the bottom half of the table, starting at home against Sunderland this weekend. They’ve yet to keep a clean sheet, but crucially have stopped shipping threes and fours. Shay Given bore the brunt of their worst performances and was replaced by Lee Grant, who in the last two games has accumulated 7 points. He’s another £4 million reserve keeper with almost guaranteed game time. That is until Jack Butland returns – and that appears to be some time in mid November. He keeps a Premier League clean sheet one in every three games. Stoke could be mid table by Christmas.

Only seven of our 53 managers finished the weekend with a total higher than 70, which is low I think, considering that it was our highest scoring gameweek of the season so far with seven teams bagging three goals or more. I don’t suppose too many of us expected Manchester United to concede three against Watford, although we now have to accept that Etienne Capoue is going to score every week. Neither did we predict that Nacer Chadli would top score – scoring two and assisting another of the four that West Brom thumped past West Ham. Leicester finally came good, but it was new signing Islam Slimani who stole the show ahead of Vardy and Mahrez. And what’s happened to Stoke? Conceding four again – and to Crystal Palace?! Who’d only previously scored three in the first four games.

What we did expect was another dominant Manchester City display. Almost everybody had some blue half of Manchester influence somewhere in their team. Kevin De Bruyne was a popular captain choice earning 28 points for those that gave him the armband. Both he and Raheem Sterling assisted and scored one each. De Bruyne pipped Sterling to the three bonus marks. Sterling as captain would have earned you 26 points. Go Buffoons Go had both in their team and posted a healthy 74 points with 41 of those contributed by the City pairing. Another 12 of their points came courtesy of Romelu Lukaku – another popular captain choice following his 11 minute hat trick last weekend.

A dip into this resurgent Everton squad was common among the Buckets teams that managed 70+. Most aptly, Upper Bullens, who jumped 18 places in the league with a highest weekly score of 79 points. Lukaku, Bolasie and Baines added 19 of those – although Spurs contributed the most to the Bullens total – 26 in all, which included 18 from Harry Kane as their captain.

Player of the week – Nacer Chadli – 21 points. West Brom’s new (only?) main man.